The annual Festival of Champions, an event held in Belfast and including almost 1,400 participants, was a stop for the varsity cross country teams from Caribou, Presque Isle and Washburn Saturday.
The top individual showing among local runners was produced by Washburn junior Carsyn Koch, who placed sixth overall out of 607 female runners who finished the five-kilometer course. Koch registered a time of 19 minutes, 6.6 seconds.
She helped the Beaver girls to a 16th-place finish out of 50 teams. Mackenzie Worcester, a sophomore, placed 56th in 21:05 and junior Carmen Bragg was 63rd in 21:12.09.
Caribou, which placed 12th, was led by Mackenzie Belyea, a senior who crossed the finish line in 19:56.52.
For Presque Isle, which came in 41st as a team, freshman Emily Colligan placed 199th in 22:53.59. Classmate Mandy Graham was the second fastest Wildcat in 23:22.38, good for 251st position.
The winning team was Mount Desert Island High School, followed by Bonny Eagle and Camden Hills. Teams from other parts of New England and Canada also took part. Bethanie Brown of Waterville took individual honors in 17:56.69, which was a meet record.
Sixty schools and nearly 800 runners competed in the boys race held on the same course.
Caribou was the top area team, placing 38th. Junior Lucas Kinney paced the Vikes by placing 87th in 17:58.19.
For Presque Isle, which came in 48th, junior Saul Nunez was the top finisher in 19:03.29, good for 232rd overall. Junior Trevor Levesque was 244th in 19:09.45.
Leading Washburn, the 54th-place team, was freshman Noah Caron, who was 140th in 18:22.64.
Cumberland High School in Rhode Island was the winning boys team, followed by Lewiston and Falmouth. The race winner was Mike Tate of JH Gillis in Nova Scotia.
The previous weekend, the Old Town Sectionals were held. The MDI girls and boys were the team champions, with Caribou’s Ron Lund winning the boys race in 17:17.56 and Koch gaining the victory in the girls race in 19:56.
For the boys, Kinney was the runner-up in 17:25.05. Nunez was 12th (18:45.31) and Caron 13th (18:46.7).
Belyea was the girls’ runner-up in 20:10.2, with Graham the first PI finisher in 23:22.73, which put her 22nd overall.
Teamwise, the Caribou boys were third, Presque Isle was sixth and Washburn eighth. For girls, the Vikings were runners-up, with Washburn taking third and PI sixth.
